Barcelona Players Are World’s Highest Paid Sportsmen, Man City Now Not Far Behind

Barcelona may have had a naff old season by their standards, but there are at least a few crumbs of comfort to nibble on elsewhere as the Catalans have successfully defended their crown as the highest-paying sports team in the world.

Barca’s £101,600 average weekly wage is still the highest paid to its players by any sports team on the surface of Planet Earth – though, of course, we can’t speak on behalf of any of the subterranean clubs, e.g, Morlock Wanderers and Legia C.H.U.D.

Such is their wont, global moneyhawks Sporting Intelligence have analysed the wage bills of 278 teams across ten countries and seven different sports and found that Barca players are by far and away sport’s highest earners – raking in an average of £5.4 million a year.

Football clubs dominate the upper echelons, with Real Madrid (£4.8 million), Manchester City (up from tenth last year to third with £4.6 million) and Chelsea (£4.2 million) making up the top four – with Bayern Munich, both Milan clubs and Manchester United also making it into Sporting Intelligence’s Top 12 cash spunkers.

Here’s said Top 12 in full…

Would you be surprised to see Man City top of that particular pile come this time next year? Nope, us neither.

Conclusion: Football is most definitely all about the money, money, money.

its funny people go on and on about barcas youth but their weekly wages are SO MUCH higher than everyone else’s

surprised RM’s wages arent higher with their massive squad size

also, chris, what makes you think city will be no.1 on the list come next year? i don’t think the 2 spanish giants have shown any slowing in their spending, and aren’t they supported by the spanish government?

All the money in the world will get you through but it can’t contemplate the fact it’s still 11 vs 11 in 90 minutes and strange blips can happen in the short term. Which is exactly what’s happening to Chelsea and also Barcelona to an extent. They’ll no doubt be in the top four in the Premier League next season and it will back the way it usually is.

Al – Not sure it proves that at all. I’ve just plotted the EPL clubs in terms of wages against their league position. Wages (as indicated in Simon Kuper’s excellent ‘Why England Lose’) are almost a perfect indicator of where a club will finish in the league. Almost to the point where you wonder if a coach has any impact at all, although that’s a debate for another day.
Arsenal had the 4th biggest wage bill in the EPL last season. They finished 4th.
Plotting the wages against league position you’ll see that 18 out of 20 clubs finished within 3 places of where they were on the wages league table. e.g. Man Utd = 3rd highest wage bill. Finished 1st. +2 places above expected.
The only outliers are West Brom at +7 and West Ham at -8, which is certainly interesting from an England point of view now that Hodgson is in charge. (Redknapp by the way stands at +2, a 5th place finish and 7th highest wage bill.

not too sure why people are so surprised at Barca having such a high wage bill when the transfer value of their squad is significantly lower than the likes of Real Madrid, considering they’ve brought through far more of their first team players from academy level. when you don’t spend on transfer fees, why not ramp up the wages? especially for the team thats been the best team most of us will have seen in our lifetime